dent of the state hospital commission, the state architect, the chairman of the senate finance committee, the chairman of the assembly ways and means committee, and the clerks of the finance committee of the senate and of the ways and means committee of the assembly.

"Such commission shall

1. Examine each site of hospital development in the state, together with such other sites as the state now owns or which in the future may be developed for hospital purposes;

2. Make a complete investigation of the capacity of the present state hospital buildings;

3. Consider future policy of the state for the care of the insane, and whether advisable to make it part custodial and part hospital;

4. Adopt a general plan of hospital development taking into consideration proximity to centers of population, transportation of supplies, patients and their relatives and friends, healthfulness, water supply and drainage facilities;

5. Devise and adopt a plan to provide for the proper accommodation of the present surplus of patients, the normal increase and a moderate surplusage of accommodations at its completion at the end of ten years;

6. Estimate the probable cost.of such plan in detail;

7. Consider each hospital site as an entity and submit a comprehensive plan for its development to a predetermined capacity, showing location, size and character of each building proposed;

8. Recommend to the legislature of each year on the date on which it convenes, an expenditure equal to one-tenth of the cost of the entire hospital plan when completed stating in detail which buildings coming within such appropriation in cost are most immediately necessary for relieving congestion for the proper care of patients and attendants and for the symmetrical and efficient development of the entire plan." An appropriation of $30,000 is provided in the bill for the expenses of the commission.

The bill also authorizes the state hospital commission to enter into contracts for new buildings on the Marcy site, to cost not more than $1,250,000, and for new buildings at the Middletown State Hospital, to cost not more than $369,000.

SUMMARY OF APPROPRIATIONS REQUESTED BY THE STATE HOSPITAL COMMISSION AND

THE STATE HOSPITALS OF THE

LEGISLATURE OF 1917

The following tables give a classified summary of the deficiency appropriations needed by the State hospitals for the current fiscal year 1916-1917; the appropriations needed by the State hospitals for 1917-1918 for personal service, maintenance and operation; the requests of the State hospitals for appropriations for new construction and equipment and repairs for 1917-1918; and the appropriations requested by the State Hospital Commission for administrative purposes.

TABLE 1.-ESTIMATES OF DEFICIENCY APPROPRIATIONS Needed BY THE STATE HOSPITALS FOR THE Current FISCAL YEAR 1916-1917

TABLE 2.-ESTIMATES OF APPROPRIATIONS NEEDED (BY STATE HOSPITALS FOR 1917-1918 FOR PERSONAL SERVICE, MAINTENANCE AND OPERATION

TABLE 3.-SUMMARY OF REQuests of the STATE HOSPITAls for APPROPRIATIONS FOR NEW CONSTRUCTION AND EQUIPMENT, AND REPAIRS FOR 1917-1918

DR. WILLIAM MABON

The State of New York has lost one of its most valuable and devoted servants, the dependent insane one of their sturdiest champions and the field of psychiatry in the United States one of its most distinguished representatives through the death on February 8 of Dr. William Mabon, superintendent and medical director of the Manhattan State Hospital.

Dr. Mabon began his services on behalf of the insane of New York State at the Utica State Hospital in 1887 when he was appointed by Superintendent Blumer as one of his assistants. The plan of exclusive State care of the insane was then crystallizing and every member of the Utica State Hospital staff became intensely interested in the outcome of the ensuing struggle. In the American Journal of Insanity, published at the hospital, Dr. Mabon and his associates were provided with a suitable channel for the dissemination of sound, and, as it proved, convincing arguments for the adoption by the State of this most advanced policy, and in season and out of season, the public was bombarded with graphic representations of the horrors of county asylum care, of the hapless fate of the insane confined in county poor houses and the necessity of immediate centralization of all functions having to do with these dependents.

Dr. Mabon showed special aptitude for hospital work and made rapid progress. After passing through the different grades of the Utica State Hospital staff he was, while acting as first assistant, appointed to the superintendency of the Willard State Hospital in 1895, where the high administrative standards established by him led to his transfer in 1896 to the superintendency of the comparatively new institution at Ogdensburg, the St. Lawrence State Hospital. Here Dr. Mabon's active and original mind